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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

mazza9 - 12:55pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10163 of 10168)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

Gisterme:

The rationale for the inspections was that the Iraqi were so precise in their record keeping that compliance could be verified by a bunch of clerks!

If that's the case, if records are not destroyed the Iraqi people will, in all likelyhood, find the proof of "Saddam's inhumanity to man!"

I will be interested to hear the excuses and babble from the Peacenik movement and who support this villian. As for France...Mark Twain nailed it, didn't he?

almarst2003 - 01:16pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10164 of 10168)

Saddam's inhumanity and foolishness was known quite a while ago to those who cared to look and understand. But not that long ago to forget a "special" relationship at that time between Saddam and the West, particularely with US.

One can also be sure there will be no "excuses and babble" from the "saint wariors" if thing will turn out badly.

As for Mark Twain... he nailed a couple of other things beside France.

lchic - 01:54pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10165 of 10168)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Potatoes have trippled in price in Baghdad, and plastic bags - to hold water are sold out.

Maslow base line realities -- as pre-war panic sets in.

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Propaganda war underway in Gulf - The World Today - Friday, 14 March , 2003

AGNES CUSACK: The United States admits to just one so-called "psychological operation in wartime". Commando Solo. That's eight aircraft from the 193rd Special Operations Wing beaming radio and television programs from a high altitude.

Public Affairs Officer, First Lieutenant, Edward Shank.

EDWARD SHANK: Commando Solo is the world's only airborne radio and television broadcasting station. We fly over an area where we broadcast information to the people, in this case to the people of Iraq.

Iraqi Kurdistan - War Within A War [transcript]

DR BARHAM SALIH: This is the guy (Saddam) who in the space of six months rounded up 182,000 people, never to be heard from again. He is a tyrant, he is a dictator, he is an evil man.

OSMAN HAMASALIH AHMED: If Saddam goes to court, he will be hanged by my hand here because of what he has done.

HARDAKER: When you hear the stories of the Kurds who live here, you can understand why they can't wait to get rid of Saddam Hussein. But what price freedom? Thousands of Kurds could be killed if Saddam Hussein launched a chemical attack over here. Already in those hills, he's got artillery positions established overlooking this area. And then there's the United States, the great liberator. They've already betrayed the Kurds in the past and the fear is they might do it again.

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s810003.htm

His (Saddam's) family's control has been so dictatorial that there are no real political institutions that might take over the running of the state if he were deposed. What could follow is a chaotic power vacuum.

Iraq has no serious internal opposition, and there are doubts about the various organisations that have set themselves as opposition groups in exile - some are badly run and disunited, others have no popular support in Iraq at all.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1879841.stm

Saddam - bbc - index

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=after+saddam&tab=allbbc&go=homepage&x=14&y=19

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Human Shields http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/

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France - Iraq (bbc index)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=france+iraq&tab=allbbc&go=homepage&x=35&y=8

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lchic - 02:01pm Mar 18, 2003 EST (# 10166 of 10168)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Reviews by program makers of the Iraq situation

* show the 'hell' the Kurds have been through - even now preparing incase of 'more' chemical attacks. Fearing that Turkey will come down on them and re-start old scraps.

* show the wheelings and dealings happening over OIL

* show the need for intervention on humanitarian grounds - in the earliest stages of internal-nation-state crisis

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